While the residents are away!

In the next few days Swanley & Hextable residents will receive a letter from Sevenoaks District Council outlining very broad proposals to develop luxury tower blocks, a multi storey car park and retail/commercial floor space in Swanley Town Centre.

The letter (see below), has a sub-heading “Planning applications – having your say” and goes on to state:

Each application is important to the people who make it and those it may affect. We want you to be involved in the planning process.”

This is clearly questionable. Swanley residents are getting the letter from the 5th August, and must reply by August 23rd, which is the closing date for any comments.

Sevenoaks District Council has sent the letter out in the most popular month for people taking their holidays. One of the web links given in the letter is broken. The other web link works, but the instructions for filling in the correct details, are difficult to follow.

Sevenoaks District Council clearly does not want to hear what the residents of Swanley & Hextable think about the proposed plans. This makes it even more important that we let them know how opposed we are to the proposals.

The key areas for objection are listed below:

Swanley needs council housing for those struggling to find a place a live. We do not need luxury flats, with rents above market value and no social housing, as proposed.

We need low rise accommodation that blends in with the character of the town.

The proposed multi-storey car park will prove insufficient and lead to further parking and traffic congestion problems. The assumption that the desired affluent residents will mostly be commuters, because they work in London is, at best, foolish.

Residents are already faced with waiting for weeks for a Doctor’s appointment. There are no plans to increase medical provision, placing further strain on the already dangerously overstretched health care services.

Local schools already have classes of thirty plus pupils and further cuts are threatened. Again the planners are thinking only of their short term profit margins, and not the needs of the wider community.

U+I cannot give a guarantee that the project will be completed. We already have the ruins of the Working Men’s Club and the Woodlands symbolising the contempt Tories and private developers have for the people of Swanley.

We need to make it very clear to Sevenoaks District Council and U+I that the Swanley Town Centre Planning Application is unacceptable. Please make sure you make your view known by emailing Sevenoaks District Council at the following address: